The Art of Leaving
by Captain Marshmallow
Summary: AU; reposted. Spencer and Ashley bond and grow through an allegorical analysis of substance abuse and the demoralization of youth in certain cultures and environments.
1. Author's Note

**Author's Note**

As anyone who has read this story (or even the description) may know, this is the second time I am posting _The Art of Leaving_. I lost access to my last account and have observed that the forums in which I had also posted it are no longer available. I felt it necessary, however, to repost it, because I would like to continue the story even though it didn't draw much attention the first time.

In any case, I feel a few disclaimers need to be made before I move on. I depict the characters as corrupt—impulsive, promiscuous, and ridden with chemicals. They lack the guidance adolescents should be familiar with. This was intentional for me to articulate the themes that are incredibly prominent throughout the plot. I am not trying to offend you, and I do believe (from experience) that people really can behave this way given the proper setting and sufficient freedom. However, I am not promoting these things! This lifestyle is sad, oppressive, and can pull anyone in. I attempted to portray it with a certain beauty, as is appropriate in all art, but in no way are my descriptions glorifying such actions.

Due to the nature of the storyline, there is much gratuitous vulgarity and a plethora of concepts that are likely to offend some people, most of which are listed above.

There is, of course, the second, more obvious disclaimer, one that I will repeat many times. I do not own South of Nowhere, nor do I own the characters. I am not in any way affiliated with the creators.

To reiterate my previous notations, I hope that whoever decides to continue does so with an open mind and is able to look beneath the heavy content. This is a piece that I have put a lot of effort into, and I would like you to enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it.


	2. Chapter 1

I do not own South of Nowhere or any of its characters. I am not in any way affiliated with the creators.

* * *

**Chapter 1**

They were talking about the Trip again. Crawling across Europe, rich and high and tools of an otherwise fleeting sense of liberty. The thought itself was intoxicating, so when they talked about the Trip there was a daze about their words, clouds in their eyes.

"And before I leave, I'll shoot that asshole, David," Ashley said, leaning back in her lawn chair, which quietly sank into the dewy grass. In the backyard during the September party, they were now oblivious to both the stars and the noise of teenagers.

"We can meet the Dalai Lama," Aiden suggested, because he figured through some fashion or another they'd end up even farther east.

"Epic," Ashley breathed.

"And become socialists. Like Staples and his crew," he said. "And we could shoot a person, you know?—if we want."

"Oh?"

"Yes. So we'll buy lots of guns, too."

Ashley closed her eyes, letting a drunken smile spread easily across her face. She forgot about Aiden and she forgot about dreaming, because she could only dream so often, and remembered the sounds of things breaking, and sirens bellowing in the distance.

She waited a few long seconds before rousting herself from her calm, shifting a little to indicate the change.

"What time is it?"

"About three."

"We should clear out that damn house."

Aiden put a joint out on the metal armrest and stood, stretching.

"Why don't you give me a minute?" he asked. "Look at that piece of ass over there. Blonde like I like it, fucking tight as a bitch, I bet. See, just give me a minute. You can get everyone else out if you want and we'll stay upstairs."

The piece of ass had acknowledged his attention and was approaching. Ashley rolled her eyes, generally uninterested. Her sex drive had been satisfied and eventually extinguished with time, and she needed to pass out before school started in the morning—the first day of school, in fact.

"Take your fucking minute, you dick," she offered. "Just come down and help when you're done, and don't knock her up."

He seemed to agree with this, and went on to court the girl arrogantly and without shame.

Ashley walked up the slope and onto the porch, through bodies and up stairs, proclaiming all the way that cops grew near. The air became urgent and the people present certainly knew how to book it, because the big, pretty house was emptied fairly thoroughly in about ten minutes.

She grabbed what remained of the Jack Daniels, which was definitely her drink, and slid down against the doorway to the living room. The place was an abyss to her: sloppily shotgunned beer cans and cigarette butts littering the floor, a bra hanging off the couch, and a haze akin to that of a pool hall frequented by bikers. The cops weren't coming, but they should have.

She didn't often throw reckless, spontaneous parties in her own home, but Aiden had insisted on the counts that her mother was out of town until Monday night and it was the final day of summer, and every day had to be more fucked up than the last, apparently.

Ashley and Aiden were best friends by eighth grade, slept together freshman year, and in due time became reacquainted with one another and began mobbing parties together regularly. They were like partners in crime, and had absolutely no respect for each other, or really anyone.

The following morning would kick off their senior year, and when Ashley turned eighteen in February they'd get ready to up and leave in the summer, take the Trip and maybe stay on it, or so they figured. She'd receive the inheritance from her father that birthday, a sum so impressive that the companions maintained little doubt about the financial security of their coming endeavor.

She looked up from her slouched position on the floor, tired and very unwilling to address the mess before her when Aiden descended the staircase an hour later. He looked all at once exhausted and thoroughly pleased with himself, and somewhat naked, too.

"Go put on some clothes, you faggot," Ashley said. "And where's that girl? If she didn't notice your tiny dick when she was drunk she will when she's sober."

Aiden covered his boxers defensively.

"Tiny?! Pff. No, no, nothing of the sort. In fact, it's humongous—gargantuan proportions. She's passed out in your bedroom from the power."

"Wash those sheets," Ashley said. "And I mean, really now, why don't you wear pants? What's the appeal?"

"I just have nice legs, and I want you to see and admire them. It's all about making you hot, Ash."

"That's a very noble cause. Did you see the honey I screwed tonight? Oh, she did me in, I'm serious."

"It was kind of like being at a candy store," Aiden pondered. "Like, I would have fucked every chick in this house."

"And there was lots of beer," Ashley said appreciatively. "It was a good thing."

Aiden plugged the stereo in beside them, slipped in a CD and fiddled with the tracks curiously. The beats were hard, ceaseless rock, and the voice smoked too many cigarettes and yelled too loud. It was very beautiful, and classic. Content with a selection, Aiden placed himself beside Ashley.

"Raife Davies: the bastard son of fucking rock n' roll," he declared.

"You use me."

"I love to listen, Ashley, I do," he said. "And this is the way to kill a night, and you know it, and you love it and doesn't it make you a little happy, or nostalgic?"

"It makes me fucking nauseous."

"You love it."

"He could have showed up a little more."

Aiden patted her on the head and laid down, every action implying how wasted he was.

"He loved you, right? Don't worry about it. Go to sleep, we'll call some maids, fucking voila—hungover _without_ responsibility." he said. "And we can mob the Beemer and catch some cheap cappuccino on the way."

They both liked this idea, and they thought of it fondly while they passed out against the wall of the living room. Later Ashley thought of her dad, and walking to the bus stop with him, and Aiden thought of having sex with girls with blonde hair and pretty eyes and young breasts.

It was a happy evening and they would remember what mattered and probably who they kissed, then they'd wake up on time in the morning and remember to call the maids and grab their keys and for God's sake, their bookbags, and school would give them mad props.

Instead, Ashley found herself kicking her friend awake at ten with her mom twelve hours away and closing the gap and no maids in sight.

Ashley was an angry driver and not a fan of the sun post-party nights. They did, in fact, mob the Beemer, but it was a resentful mob, and Ashley almost crashed into a lot of things. There was no cheap cappuccino. Such a thing never existed, save for the occasional ghetto L.A. gas station—which wasn't on the way.

Arriving at school there were, predictably enough, absolutely no parking spaces, and they had to walk about half a mile up to the entrance. The place looked institutional, towering above them with thick brick walls and masses of children moving across the ugly urban campus, but Aiden and Ashley, in the least, were not scared—King High, if anywhere, was completely unthreatening.

Ashley, personally, disliked the educational system. She was localized as a whore and a lesbian, and even without the segregation this brought she felt little sympathy for the undereducated people she would have to talk to had the situation allowed it. She, of course, in the middle of Los Angeles, was not the only out-of-the-closet homosexual, but she was among the loudest. She liked to fight, too, and the students noticed that, and enjoyed it.

She climbed three staircases and came in late for her science class, planted herself in the back row of an almost full classroom. She was next to the only other empty seat.

The teacher gave her the look, and Ashley was very ready to say something smart-alecky and uncalled for. She'd been considering it all morning.

"Ms. Davies, is this an excused absence?"

"Not in the least."

"You'll be talking to the principal today, then, I suppose, but I'm sure you know that. It's the first day of school, you should think to give yourself some leeway."

"You should teach a real class. What is this, anatomy? That's not even the problem, though, really, because then I couldn't take weight training. You're in a room full of teenagers with nothing better to do at eight in the morning and all you can do is stand up there and yell at me. Hop to it, now, show me some bones and shit."

"It's eleven, Ashley, and don't swear at me."

"Oh, come on, go ahead."

The teacher rolled her eyes, for the most part unfazed, and glanced down at her seating chart momentarily.

"Your seat's to the left, Ashley, the transfer student sits there."

"And where is she?"

"Late, and probably with an actual reason. These displays are ridiculous–go pass out the books, and don't goof off about it. See me after class."

Ashley was very compliant and quiet, at this point busying herself with checking out the condition of her female classmates, some of whom were moderately attractive. She didn't think she could bed all of them, but she figured she could try.

She did, in fact, see the teacher after class, and she was chastised and given detention, which she would maybe attend, if she wasn't still hung over. She got a pass to the next class and still got another detention, because she'd finally woken up and had plenty left to say.

Aiden, at the other end of the hall, started off his day popular and friendly, skipping the first class altogether and smoking cigarettes and pot with some of the kids from the basketball team in the locker room. He started off most days like that, and didn't get around to fraternizing with Ashley until school had ended.

Aiden was tall and handsome, and girls flirted with him and felt his well-manicured hair at lunchtime. He fucked a lot of them, and he played a lot of basketball, which was like fucking for him, anyways: poetic and brutal and far away.

Ashley was intimidating and rude. They enjoyed each other's company, and both decided to show up at detention that afternoon, so they could enjoy each other's company there. For about an hour and a half they discussed hot girls and buying a thirty-pack and an ounce, until they were shushed and eventually dismissed.

They mobbed the BMW, at last, and picked up Sean the dealer and Ashley's little sister Kyla near the art department, and the four drove to the house, passing around a fat firm blunt. Sean sold Ashley her ounce and Aiden bought a quarter and drove him to his car. The two sisters sat about the house, not anticipating any schedule in particular, besides the return of Aiden and eventually Christine, Ashley's mother.

Kyla was from distant lands, having moved when Raife Davies, her father, had died. Ashley's mother wasn't hers, but she was quick to escape her own when the opportunity came. It was pretty for her to think about freedom, even though now she had it and she mourned structure.

She adored L.A. because she adored everything, but she was no native and she often moped around and talked to her ex-boyfriends when she could have been going out. She went to her bedroom to do that around dinner time, but promptly returned, enraged.

"Ashley, there is a girl in my bed! A half-naked girl! In my bed!" Kyla said, dramatically upset, as she tended to be. "Do I need to call the police? What did you do last night? Did you throw a party? Oh, man, I knew I shouldn't have slept at Chelsea's. You threw a party, and someone slept with that girl and forgot her. Probably you. You probably slept with all my friends, afterwards."

"I _did_ throw a party."

Kyla gasped, very offended.

"And I slept with _one_ of your friends. Over the course of the last week, about three. But that was a girl Aiden picked up, and he said she passed out in _my_ room, not _yours_, so it's definitely not my fault. It's definitely his fault."

"That is not your room! That is my room!"

"Did you wake her up?" Ashley didn't really care much. The house seemed pretty clean when she walked in, thankfully enough, and people do tend to pass out places, sometimes here. It was a fact of life, and it wasn't her fault they were careless.

"No! It's a girl passed out in my _bed_room, Ashley, and your disgusting pretty boy messed with her and probably got fucking cooties on my sheets, and blanket, and maybe even my alarm clock so I will get a disease every time I sleep or wake up!"

"You're right, that's exactly what will happen," Ashley said. She ate a Kit Kat and lit up a square.

"Well! Go get rid of her," Kyla shouted. Most of the time she was shouting; she was a very excitable person.

Ashley stood up and brushed off her hands, puffing the cigarette as she walked up to Kyla's bedroom and opened the door. Sure enough, there was a girl in the bed, somewhat clothed and hidden behind the disheveled sheets. She was awake, however, and was holding her head in her hands, looking almost scared.

She turned to Ashley with big, blue eyes, and frowned.

"What time is it?"

"About five p.m."

"On...Monday?"

"Yeah. Are you in school? Because most of the public schools started today, and," Ashley added a dramatic pause. "You know, the day's kind of over."

"That's not good," the girl asserted, her voice a little panicky, but mostly thoughtful.

Ashley nodded in agreement and tossed a pair of jeans that were draped over a chair at the guest.

"Get up and get out," she suggested, feeling a little less personable. She was hoping that the girl would have become frightened and run off.

Instead, for whatever reason, she was smiling now, tilting her head to the side a little.

"Thanks. I'll have my brother come pick me up, if that's okay," she said. "Did you have a good time last night?"

Ashley eyed her suspiciously, wondering whether she should have bitched her out more seriously, as the reaction didn't sound very urgent or terrified.

"It was my fucking party, you bet I fucking did. And I bet that little boy toy friend of mine rocked your world, and you just loved all that loving."

The girl was frowning again, clothing herself, and Ashley became incredibly sour at her and Kyla and Aiden and everyone for having to look at her. She didn't even feel like hitting on her, even though there were quite a few openings and she was rather pretty. She slammed the door and returned to her spot in the living room in a very bad mood.

"Cunt is getting picked up."

"Cunt? Her name is Cunt? You slept with a girl named Cunt in my bedroom, Ashley? What does that say, Ashley? Cunt!" Kyla was exasperated. She turned on the tunes and began to pack a bowl with Ashley's weed, as was forthcoming for the situation.

"No, Kyla, Aiden slept with Cunt. I would never sleep with Cunt."

"Then don't."

"I won't. Her name is Cunt."

Cunt entered the room, looking a little nervous and upset. Kyla gave her a very dirty look, and so did Ashley, but the door was right there and she figured it out.

Ten minutes later Ashley felt obligated to bring out some of the trash bags that the maids had accumulated from the previous night, and she walked outside and past the girl, who was sitting expectantly on the stoop.

"My name is Spencer," Cunt said, smiling again, just a little. "Not what you were calling me inside. And I had a good time, too, with or without Aiden. Usually I don't go to those things, but my brother made me, because I'd be starting a new school this year, and I actually enjoyed it this time, in spite of all the chaos. It was kind of wonderful."

Her voice was high and sweet, somehow innocent independent of the sex. Ashley wanted to spit on her, she despised it so.

"You're not invited to anymore of my parties," Ashley said. "I don't like stupid wasted people who don't leave in the morning and let themselves be booty calls."

Ashley had her back turned to Spencer. She should have been turning the knob, opening the door and leaving her to the summer night chill, but she wanted to see her respond to that. Not, specifically, to say any particular thing, so much as to respond at all.

"You're right," Spencer said. "I don't really like drinking too much, being a booty call, or staying places I don't know. But I liked the other things, and meeting people. I'll be careful, though, and, you know, I'm fine."

"Fuck off."

A pick-up truck pulled up.

"Goodbye."

Ashley was still facing the door. The truck door opened and the driver sped off. She stared at the wood, slightly chipped and weathered, and drew her thumb across the metal of the doorknob thoughtfully. When she could no longer hear the clanging grunt of the car's motor, she went back into her house and thought about the Trip, which she usually did when she wanted to think. Aiden came back and she watched Kyla yell at him, then the three smoked themselves to sleep.


	3. Chapter 2

I do not own South of Nowhere or any of its characters. I am not in any way affiliated with the creators.

* * *

**Chapter 2**

Glen loved to party. He loved beer, cocaine, and inebriated girls, and he loved them when they were all together. The party in the mansion was a really good example of the success of this kind of collaboration. Ultimately, he was a very pleased man to have crashed this particular place this particular night.

"Glen, I don't know _anyone_ here. _You_ don't know anyone here. I don't even know where we are! I don't even know how I'm getting home," his little sister whined. Her voice had cut into his reverie, and he was pissed and drunk.

"Take this and shut up," he said, handing her a water bottle full of vodka. "See that big guy over there? He's flirting with you from afar. Go talk to him until you pass out."

The two siblings had moved two weeks ago and had appeared at Ashley's house through some very convenient coincidences. Even Glen, expertly social in a manipulative sort of way, had not made enough friends to get him into that many good locations in LA. The next day they'd be touring a large local public school, and the day after that they'd be attending classes with thousands more people they didn't know.

Glen's little sister's name was Spencer. She was cute and nice and a little bit religious, and did not know how to drink at all. Consequently, it only took a few swigs from the bottle before she was eager to follow her brother's directions.

Aiden led her to a room on the second floor and pushed her against the wall and they kissed hungrily while she giggled and eventually fell onto the bed. Led Zeppelin played in the background, and she lost her virginity, many, many miles from Ohio, where she had grown up beautiful and kept it with such ease.

Waking up the next evening in a strange place, she wasn't quite sure how she felt about it. She was scared and hungover, as she was apt to be, and longed for familiarity. In addition, she had missed the tour and the meeting with the school, but in her years she had learned to take such things in stride, regardless of how big a deal her mother would make about it.

Glen was upset when he picked her up, violently whipping around the cheap cigar he was smoking. He wasn't much for taxiing, especially since they'd gotten to LA, and even without the weight of driving there and back he was angry at Spencer for having skipped out on the appointment.

"What were you thinking, not leaving when the cops came? What are you, five? Are you a hooker, were you up there banging that slutty guy?" Glen said. He seemed to be fuming a little from his ears.

Spencer ducked as the hand with the cigar flew in the direction of her head. She felt reasonably endangered, so she stayed quiet.

"Oh, yeah, and Mom's fucking pissed. She's going to cut your fucking head off. And Dad's like, 'It's okay, I'm sure she just got caught up at a friend's house, and she's probably already been to the confessional.' Well, you haven't. I think a juggalo lives there or some shit. You haven't been to any confessional at all."

Spencer's head throbbed under Glen's speech, recovering poorly from the alcohol. The air was very stale, and there was a cloud of pollution around the city. Ohio never quite smelled like the pits of Los Angeles through which they drove then.

It felt the same the following morning, when the pick-up truck hummed its way to school. She sat in the passenger seat and Glen smoked another cigar. In the backseat sat Clay, the youngest of the family by a few months. He was black, an adopted child, and glum-looking.

"Where were you yesterday?"

"Glen abandoned me at that party because he thought the cops were coming," Spencer said.

"Oh," Clay said. He looked very visibly glum today, but everyone else did too; that was just the kind of day it was. Glen puffed away at the cigar and ran ahead of them in the parking lot. He was trying to make some friends.

During her science class, Spencer met Ashley Davies. She sat next to her in the back, flashed a tired smile, and received only a distinct scowl.

"I didn't know you went to the same school as me," she said. "Does Aiden go here, too? And that other girl?"

"Shut up, I'm trying to listen," Ashley told her. The teacher started laughing.

In the halls, Aiden found her and caught her mid-step, giving her a long, hard stare. He put his hands on her shoulders, grinning down at her, and guided her towards the courtyard.

"Come have a smoke with me. Spencer, right?" he asked. "The other night was pretty tight, right?"

"Um."

"You're beautiful. Sometimes when I get drunk I'll fuck anyone, but I'm glad I fucked someone beautiful," he said, all charming and endearing. It really was the best he could come up with. He passed her a cigarette and she inhaled, coughed a little. It looked wonderful to him—so pure.

"Here, don't worry about it, don't worry about it. Have you made any friends yet?" Aiden asked, removing the square from her hands like it was an extension of his own. Several girls walked by, giggling, and he winked at them. They giggled harder.

"Well, I have a class with Ashley," she said. "She doesn't like me much."

"She doesn't like anyone much. She's my best friend, though," he said. "She'll warm up to you, if you spend time around her. I mean if you spend time around me, you'll spend time around her. If you want to. You know, spend time around us."

He sounded like a fifth grade boy. Spencer preferred the stuttering to when he breathed nicotine-scented air in her face, and when he smirked, as if he expected her to come back to bed with him because of it.

"I'd love to. Can I sit with you at lunch?"

"You can sit with Ashley. I have to sit with the basketball team." It was true; if he didn't sit with the basketball team, they'd get lost. They wouldn't know what to do with themselves, and they might end up just pacing in circles.

Spencer found Ashley in the back of the cafeteria, reading Erich Fromm. The girl appeared to be absorbed and distant, but when she sat down beside her the response was prompt.

"Yes?" Ashley said. Then she glared, as if she were looking at Hell, and Hell was Spencer and Spencer was Hell, and she was looking at it.

"Aiden said I should sit with you," Spencer tried. "I've read that."

"What? So you can read, write _and_ talk? Sucks for your family, I suppose," Ashley said. Spencer stared at her for a second.

"Do you usually read philosophy at lunch? It's a little loud."

"I'll read philosophy in your fucking mother's bedroom, bitch," Ashley said, then sat back proudly in her seat, feeling clever.

Spencer paused to laugh, and Ashley slammed her book down, upset.

"That was a good comeback. You're full of shit," she said, pointing accusingly across the table.

"Have you ever used it before?"

"All the fucking time," Ashley said. Her eyes were narrow and predatory. "And I bet you've never had a good comeback in your life. I bet you go around all day saying inane things to all the people who insult you, as they completely have the right to, and before you moved to LA everyone thought you were schizophrenic."

"Schizophrenic?"

"Yes. Completely, very schizophrenic. Inhumanly schizophrenic."

"No, no one thought that. Do you? I mean, I don't think any of the things I've said really indicate that I have schizophrenia."

"Trust me, I _know_ schizophrenia," Ashley said. She looked very serious.

"You know schizophrenia...personally?"

"_Yes_."

Clay inched over to the two and sat down beside Spencer hesitantly. He looked shy, and still rather glum.

"No, no, no, I'm sick of this and I'm moving," Ashley said, but mostly she just sat there. They were in the only remotely empty area in the room.

"This is Clay. He's my brother," Spencer explained. Clay waved under the table.

"No, he's not, because he's black and you're white, and you are just constantly full of shit, and a compulsive liar," Ashley explained. Some of this statement was in fact true, because Clay was still black and Spencer was still white.

"I was adopted," Clay said. Ashley ignored him; she was already over it.

"Clay, this is Ashley. We're not friends," Spencer said.

"Don't introduce me to your family. Don't even pretend you know my name—you don't."

"We're not even acquaintances, and I _don't_ know her name," Spencer said, then smiled a little. "But it's Davies, isn't it? Ashley Davies? Your dad was in that band—Purple Venom. Do you know what I'm talking about?"

Clay nodded, even though he didn't really know that band at all. He had just heard of them. Actually, he preferred classical. He played a mean piano.

"Are you stalking me?"

"I suppose—but I like that music. I like that band," Spencer said.

"Are you sure you're not thinking of Britney Spears? Because they're different people. My dad wasn't Britney Spears."

"No, no, I'm not thinking of Britney Spears. I like the band your father was in."

The bell rang. Ashley hurried over to Aiden, away from the siblings, in a frenzied attempt to compel him to skip class with her. She was thoroughly exasperated with the entire thing.

"Why did you sic that bitch on me?" she asked, because he was, as it turned out, willing to skip. It didn't require much thought for him to make such a decision.

"Um, hm," he said. "Shelby?" He was just guessing. He wasn't sure which bitch he'd sicced on her.

"No. Cunt," Ashley said. She didn't want to say the name; she was afraid it'd jinx it and she'd have to talk to her again.

"Oh. You mean, oh, Spencer? She's sweet, isn't she?" Aiden said. "I didn't remember her being that pretty when we were drunk."

"Yes, yes, Cunt. And you've got it all wrong, she's a beast, that one. Very diseased," Ashley explained. "What's that sound in your voice, though, what are you getting at?" She looked at him suspiciously.

"No, I think she was a virgin, man. Hey, what about that thirty-pack? Let's go get it," Aiden said. "We'll get drunk, and shit."

He looked out into empty space, anticipating happily the drinking session the day foretold. Ashley was still very upset, making elaborate gestures to go with her words.

"Oh my God, Aiden. I know what you're doing. You're thinking about _dating_ again!" she gasped accordingly.

This interrupted his thought process, which before had been in no way aligned with hers.

"You know what, Ashley? I'm not thinking about dating again. In fact, I want a steady fucking girlfriend. I'm going to ask _Cunt_ out. I think she's beautiful, and she's the nicest girl in the fucking world and you're all harassing her like she gave you Herpes or something," he said. "And it's none of your fucking business whether I date or not. And she has nice tits, and I won't have to worry about who I'm banging or when and I can just be happy for a bit, before we leave, you know? I mean, fucking chill out. Shit doesn't always have to be so damn, I don't know, hard."

He walked away dramatically, like he was an eighth grade girl blowing off her bff for the sixteenth time that year. It was a very grim scene for Ashley, but they met again at the liquor store and did absolutely nothing in the way of reconciliation. Instead, they faked forgetting, and they laughed together as they drank.

In the Carlin home, Spencer told Glen about her day.

"Sounds like a bitch to me," he said. "She's a rich bitch, though, with a daddy like that. And that was her house you stayed at, wasn't it? Jesus. Make friends with her, Spence."

"Raife Davies is dead, Glen."

"Yeah," agreed Clay, even though he didn't really know, and all of his favorite artists were dead.

Then, Spencer told her dad about her day. She left out the part about the cigarette, and about having passed out at Ashley's house two nights ago.

"It's certainly a start, Spencer. I'm sure she'll figure it out," he said. "And she sounds like a pretty interesting character, too—as long as she's not like any of Glen's friends, I think you're fine."

Arthur was very tall and smiled many big, wide smiles. He was a social worker, and he loved to hear about how Spencer was doing. He was wise, too, because he was right about Glen's friends, most of whom were indeed quite bland.

Spencer did not tell her mother about her day, because her mother was at work at the hospital. She imagined she was getting laid at the hospital, too, and she and Clay conjectured about it after dinner as they watched television. When she'd finished her homework and chores she shut herself in her room and remembered Ohio, and what Deborah would say, or maybe her ex-boyfriend. They were pleasant thoughts. She dreamt about small towns.


	4. Chapter 3

I do not own South of Nowhere or any of its characters. I am not in any way affiliated with the creators.

* * *

**Chapter 3  
**

After a few weeks, Aiden began dragging Spencer around everywhere he went. He gave her lots of alcohol, pot, and cigarettes, and made a lot of attempts to sneakily corrupt her. Most of the time, she just looked kind of exhausted, but sometimes he would come up with a crazy, impossible scheme and she'd go along with it by accident.

"Let's take a bunch of ecstasy and mushrooms and go to an amusement park," Aiden said. "Then we can break some shit."

"Fine." Spencer yawned, apparently not listening. It was two in the morning on a Tuesday, because he had insisted the "gang," which was a very new term, had to get together and, per se, party. Instead of partying, however, they were sitting around smoking lots of marijuana in Ashley's bedroom and being rude to one another.

Ashley had made a habit of always looking pissed, and was giving everyone mean looks. Right now she was giving Kyla a mean look, because Kyla loved Spencer and was being rather friendly. Ashley decidedly disliked her and wanted everyone to be unfriendly to her.

"Stop trying to, I don't know, defile her, Aiden," Kyla said. "It makes you look girlier."

"Shut up, Kyla," Ashley said. "Aiden knows he's girly, and that slut is a slut." She furrowed her brow aggressively.

Sean was selling drugs to Glen in the back of the house. Glen often showed up to buy drugs from Sean. Suddenly, his sister was the hook-up, and she didn't even care.

Around that time, Glen had also begun fucking the same girl twice. He was very obvious about it, and he brought her to his two a.m. Tuesday drug deals. This was because she had humongous breasts, and he hated Aiden and wanted to rub it in his face.

When he walked out with her, he stood a little behind her so he could make signals at her chest and flip Aiden off. He did it every single time. Everyone rolled their eyes simultaneously.

By some strange workings, they actually did go to an amusement park, stretches of land away from the city. The place, predictably, was closed, and the Ferris wheel kind of rocked under the warm California winds. Although they planned to do something interesting roughly every night, they rarely did anything besides go to parties and throw them and smoke too much weed. Spencer thought the silence was beautiful, shared a rare appreciation for the moon.

No one was on ecstasy or shrooms or both. They _did_ bring a keg, though.

Glen and his girlfriend, a vicious Hispanic named Madison, immediately retreated to the other side of the park to have sex. Aiden and Sean wanted to break things, so they drank some and got to doing so excitedly, as if violence were second nature. It might have been.

Kyla, Ashley, and Spencer lined up beside a booth, at first pacing, eventually planting themselves against the wall. The boyish yelps faded into the distance and the setting was calm and easy for the quiet contemplation of which they were typically deprived—among the L.A. traffic, there were no lonely moments.

Kyla thought about Raife Davies, whom she had never consciously met. She recalled Baltimore, and going to theme parks with her stepfather. He had hugged her and loved her and talked to her when she had trivial issues with friends and men. She didn't like him much, she thought.

Spencer remembered that first night with Aiden, and crossing the backyard into the house with him while the people drained around them. They held hands. She had been apprehensive, forgotten about the cute flings she had once worried over. It bothered her a lot, because most of all she hadn't really felt anything. Lust was dry, painless—she had done it, and slept, and felt a little bit sick, and she hadn't thought much of anything at all.

Ashley was considering the Trip. She usually did. There were a lot of details to it. She thought maybe she just wouldn't take Aiden, because he was being such a pussy and all.

After a few minutes they spread themselves across the pavement, ignored the feeling of cold concrete against skin. It was pretty to look up right then. They were surrounded by nothing.

"Do you think we should take a bus through the United States and to Mexico, or go to Europe first? I mean, we'll do both. But I don't know which one would be more efficient to start with," Ashley said. It wasn't an interruption, really. They could still hear the wind.

"What is the Trip?" Spencer asked. Kyla wasn't listening any longer.

"The day we kill you—we're going to run you over and abandon the car in the fucking ocean and just laugh the hours away. _Hours_," Ashley said, almost impulsively.

Spencer didn't say anything.

"When I get my half of the inheritance on my birthday, we're going to leave Los Angeles. For a long time. We're going to go everywhere, and we're going to learn about freedom," Ashley said. "It's a little bit complex, though. It has to be pretty thorough, but we'll have a few rounds."

"Who's 'we?'" Spencer asked.

There was a pause, a considerable one, maybe three minutes of emptiness.

"I don't know."

"Aiden and you are going to get _married_ and Ashley is going to go on her adventure and meet some French girls and have a very successful polygamous union and I'm going to live with Christine, or something. Oh my God," said Kyla in a characteristically loud outburst. "We're seniors! Our lives are over."

"Your life is over. I mean, especially if you stay with Christine. I mean, what?" Ashley said. "But my life isn't over. My life hasn't even started. I'm waiting. I can't start yet."

Spencer was concentrating.

"The summer before my junior year, I used to think about going away, perhaps to med school, something like that," she said. "And I thought maybe this move was a little bit like going away, because up until it actually happened I was still thinking about it. But, I mean, I went away. I miss Deb, and Paulie, and walking down a suburban sidewalk with my dog. I'd love to do that now. But it's all the same if I think about leaving here, so most of the time I think about it more as going somewhere else and staying there."

Ashley was staring at Spencer in the dark. Her expression was, for once, not representing thousands of things. She was just curious.

A lot of shit was broken at the park before they went home. It was a soundless, sleepy return. No one went to school the next day. On Friday, Aiden made sneaky plans to bring Spencer to a rave, and the "gang" showed up, because it was a rave, and they were teenagers in Los Angeles.

He waited with Ashley beside a box of glow sticks, in a spacious warehouse that was gradually filling.

"Why don't you talk anymore?" he asked, kind of sarcastic, kind of genuinely interested.

"I'm drunk," Ashley said. "I forgot English." She wasn't drunk at all and it was obvious, and she hadn't forgotten English because she was speaking it. The main issue was that she didn't know why she wasn't talking. For the most part, she had just been thinking a lot, and she couldn't think and hold useless conversations at the same time. Consequently, she had been avoiding them, and not very practically.

"I have _news_," he offered.

"I bet it'll piss me off."

"Oh, no, definitely," Aiden said. "Just, guess. Come on, guess."

"This is pissing me off," she said. She prepared to walk to the other corner, to think and such.

"Man, you need to get laid."

"What's your news?"

"I'm asking Spencer out, and she's going to say yes, and the team's gonna be like, 'Yeah!' and I'm going to punch her dick brother in the face," he said, very serious. "She's so cute, Ashley, you just don't get it. She's like, the peaceful stranger with a heart."

Ashley was struggling with his analogy and pissed off in general at his news. She went to the other corner, to think and such. Aiden shrugged it all off, bought five Blue Doves laced with acid from Sean. He was very ready to get fucked up.

A small crowd developed and Spencer crept through the door, Clay and Kyla in tow. Clay was her ride, because Glen wanted to go to the club and see Madison dance like a whore, and Kyla and she had begun a very functional relationship in which they were both constantly distraught about people who made them hang out with them. They spent lots of time together.

Clay was glum that night. He didn't want to be there—really, he didn't.

Aiden raced over to Spencer. He stood like a shy giant, his hands tucked into his pockets awkwardly and his wife beater hanging loosely over his body.

Clay approached Sean. They wanted to talk about politics, as both were very active members of the Los Angeles black community. Clay had been accepted into first-tier schools, and Sean was a relatively large-scale entrepreneur of sorts.

Kyla left them alone, but she did it very deliberately. It was because Aiden disgusted her.

"Have you been having fun?" Aiden asked. Then he grimaced, like he'd just been shot in the crotch. He wanted to say something really cool and sexy, but he hadn't really thought of anything cool and sexy. It frustrated him.

"Here?" Spencer asked.

"No, no, I mean, just like, chilling. You know. All that."

"All the...chilling?"

"Yeah, yeah, the chilling. Good stuff."

"Oh, yeah. Chilling. Definitely," Spencer said, nodding furiously. She generally preferred normal discussions to awkward ones, so she felt a bit uncomfortable.

"Listen, listen, Homecoming's coming up, right?" Aiden asked, as if he'd forgotten.

"Oh, yeah. Homecoming. I wonder where you're taking this," she said. Realistically, she knew where he was taking it.

"Are you, say, going with anyone yet?" Aiden asked. He started a pivot where he stood, rocking back and forth on his heels, brimming with nervous energy.

"No, no. Do you want to go with me?"

"Yes!"

"All right, all right. What are you on?" Spencer asked.

"Ecstasy!" Aiden said—then he winked, like he was in an advertisement. "But I mean, that's got nothing to do with it. It hasn't even kicked in yet, you know? It's just, I know we've fucked before, but, Spencer, damn it, I like hanging out with you. Being with you, all that shit. We don't even need to fuck again if you want to take it slow, or whatever, but, go out with me." Pause. "Please, go out with me."

Spencer searched the room carefully, saw Kyla hitting on the DJ, Clay yelling something circular to Sean. In the shadows of the farthest corner, she could see Ashley messing with a girl. They were ravenous about it.

"Sure."

Aiden hadn't technically considered what would happen if she did want to "take it slow," but he was glad she hadn't mentioned it. He wiped sweat from his brow, eased slowly away from the scene. Ultimately, the entire thing had left him feeling similar to a character from a B-rated 80's film. No one ever wanted the rave to turn out like a B-rated 80's film, as they often tended to do.

"Do you want one of these?" he asked, holding out his palm in mid-step. "They'll make you feel good."

"No, don't worry about it."

"What do you want to drink?"

Nothing, Spencer thought. But what she said was Bud Light.

He disappeared into a body of people, and Spencer remembered cigarettes, and what she'd learned about them since she got to King High. She sought Kyla and bummed one, headed for the back doors to smoke it and stare into space.

Ashley followed her a minute later, in a swearing mess. She saw Spencer and swore at her, pushed the door open farther to reveal the girl she had been necking passed out in her arms.

"It's fucking seven o'clock in the fucking evening. What fucking bitch passes out at seven o'clock? Is this your fault, you fucking bitch? I bet you were about to pass out," Ashley said. She glared pointedly.

"I'm going out with Aiden," Spencer said. She kept Ashley updated on most things, and usually enjoyed her responses, which were all rather irrelevant.

"You're a slut," Ashley said, but she meant it this time; it was very relevant.

"I know," Spencer replied. She sat down on the stoop with her cigarette, staring at the gravel.

"Give me that, you slut, right now," Ashley said. "You don't even know what you're doing. You smoke like a gay man."

"Maybe you just smoke like a lesbian."

"I am _not_ a lesbian. I'm just a woman who has sex with women."

"I'm glad we could finally clarify."

"Your fucking problem is that you spend too much damn time around that wuss, and then you go to your first rave and people are passing out at seven. That's what your problem is. Oh, and you never get any ass whatsoever, even though you're a slut."

"Oh? How'd you know this was my first rave?"

"Everyone in the whole fucking world knows it's your first rave. What if I _didn't _know it was your first rave?" Ashley proposed. "That'd be fucking strange, if I couldn't figure that out."

"I don't want to go out with Aiden," Spencer said. "I don't think."

Ashley sat down next to her, put on her nonchalant face.

"He's very handsome, right? And that used to matter to me. I used to want to be dating all the time, but I stopped caring somewhere. I don't know when."

"_Handsome_, seriously?"

"Seriously."

"He's pissing me off," Ashley said. "It used to be everyone pissed me off and he pissed me off a little less, but now he just pisses me off as much as everyone else. Maybe even more than Kyla."

"Do you think I should go out with him?"

"Torture yourself," she said.

Spencer grinned.

"No, I think I will. I don't know what I'd do if I didn't," she said. "If I get drunk, do you think I'll end up having sex with him again?"

"Yes," Ashley said. "Unprotected, nasty sex."

"I don't want to do that."

"Come here," Ashley said, in the least sexually inviting way she could manage. The result was monotone and otherworldly, and eventually awkward because then she had to do something with the unconscious girl. At some point she led Spencer to where Sean and Clay were debating, and bought her two rolls.

"Go rave," she told her. Spencer swallowed them and became submerged in what had at last become a mass of people.


End file.
